The Asus Padfone has been a long time in the making, but we should finally see the final design at Mobile World Congress on February 27th, according to a report from Paul O’Brien of Modaco. The first of its kind innovation allows the user to dock their smartphone into a tablet docking accessory for a larger viewing area.

Many recent reports keep claiming that the Padfone will feature Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor, but the device was already spotted with a Snapdragon S4 (MSM8960) in some leaked benchmarks. Sean Hollister of The Verge also confirmed the Snapdragon S4 processor was included with the prototype unit that was being shown off at CES.

This could all change however because Asus is expected to reveal a redesigned Padfone that differs from the prototypes that have been shown so far. This means the physical design will be altered, most likely to remove the physical buttons since the Padfone is expected to ship with Android 4.0.

Another interesting feature of the Padfone is that it supports the Asus Transfomer keyboard dock. The prototype unit shown at CES supported the older TF101 dock, but we expect the redesigned unit to support the newer TF201 docking station that works with the Transformer Prime.

Overall, it looks like a pretty unique device that is sure to garner some attention thanks to its unique design. Ultimately, we think it will succeed or fail based on the exact retail pricing of the tablet accessory. Hopefully they can keep it under $150, similar to the mobile docking station of the Transformer Prime.

Bonus video: In case you somehow missed it, check out the first unveiling of the Padfone by Asus Chairman Jonney Shih.

Taylor is the founder of Android and Me. He resides in Dallas and carries the Samsung Galaxy S 4 and HTC One as his daily devices. Ask him a question on Twitter or Google+ and he is likely to respond. | Ethics statement

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Okay, I am SERIOUSLY stoked about this! Between the Padfone and the Spider concept devices and the work that Asus has been doing with the Transformer series, this is some REALLY cool stuff! I blogged a year ago ( http://www.jaxidian.org/update/2011/01/10/182/ ) about all of this sort of stuff and it’s really exciting to see some of this really happening!

It sounds interesting, but I think it will be more about how the product is designed and whether the carriers will allow you to use this product without buying an additional data plan. If you have to pay $20 extra to be able to use the tablet, along with the phone, then I don’t think this product will get much traction in the market.

Knowing the carriers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them ask for an additional $20 or whatever to use your data connection on the tablet accessory. That’s what AT&T did for the Motorola Atrix 4G lapdock accessory.

I didn’t realize AT&T did that. That’s ridiculous! They need to take this tiered data to the next level and just let us pay for a single bucket of data and allow any device to pull from that bucket. This per-device bucket is crap. And of course, that only works if they have properly-sized and priced buckets.

I have a TF101 with dock. I was severely disappointed that the TF201 dock wasn’t compatible, for no good reason (Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m speaking from hearsay). Now, my current smartphone, an OG HTC Desire is nearing it’s End of Life. I’ll keep it around for a while still, thanks to CyanogenMod, but I sure hope that the padphone is successful enough that they release an updated version. I can see my next phone and my next tablet being that…

From what I can see, the original tf dock isn’t compatible because the new one is about half the weight and looks completely different. They’d look ridiculous together. But I guess the option to use the original would be nice

I like the idea of interchangeable docks. I think it would be great for someone to come out with one that plugs into HDMI or the MicroUSB and will work for any phone running a certain Android OS (or even one that can have updated firmware). So many possibilities! It only takes everyone to stop releasing phones every 6 weeks and start with more universal features!

I totally agree … Motorola did it with the Atrix, and it bombed, i’m not sure why they
are still flogging a dead horse ..
I was hoping for more pen based tablets, as this idea seems much more usable …
Asus makes some fantastic devices .. but this 1 blows chunks !!

Okay, I am SERIOUSLY stoked about this! Between the Padfone and the Spider concept devices and the work that Asus has been doing with the Transformer series, this is some REALLY cool stuff! I blogged a year ago ( http://www.jaxidian.org/update/2011/01/10/182/ ) about all of this sort of stuff and it’s really exciting to see some of this really happening!

It sounds interesting, but I think it will be more about how the product is designed and whether the carriers will allow you to use this product without buying an additional data plan. If you have to pay $20 extra to be able to use the tablet, along with the phone, then I don’t think this product will get much traction in the market.

Knowing the carriers, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them ask for an additional $20 or whatever to use your data connection on the tablet accessory. That’s what AT&T did for the Motorola Atrix 4G lapdock accessory.

I didn’t realize AT&T did that. That’s ridiculous! They need to take this tiered data to the next level and just let us pay for a single bucket of data and allow any device to pull from that bucket. This per-device bucket is crap. And of course, that only works if they have properly-sized and priced buckets.

I have a TF101 with dock. I was severely disappointed that the TF201 dock wasn’t compatible, for no good reason (Correct me if I’m wrong, I’m speaking from hearsay). Now, my current smartphone, an OG HTC Desire is nearing it’s End of Life. I’ll keep it around for a while still, thanks to CyanogenMod, but I sure hope that the padphone is successful enough that they release an updated version. I can see my next phone and my next tablet being that…

From what I can see, the original tf dock isn’t compatible because the new one is about half the weight and looks completely different. They’d look ridiculous together. But I guess the option to use the original would be nice

I like the idea of interchangeable docks. I think it would be great for someone to come out with one that plugs into HDMI or the MicroUSB and will work for any phone running a certain Android OS (or even one that can have updated firmware). So many possibilities! It only takes everyone to stop releasing phones every 6 weeks and start with more universal features!

I totally agree … Motorola did it with the Atrix, and it bombed, i’m not sure why they
are still flogging a dead horse ..
I was hoping for more pen based tablets, as this idea seems much more usable …
Asus makes some fantastic devices .. but this 1 blows chunks !!